In this course, you will prove Mr. Shaw wrong. You will learn a lot from history. You will:

• Learn how people with disabilities lived, learned and worked from ancient times to the present.
  
  
• Recognize ways in which history repeats itself and how those abuses continue today under new names.
  
  
• Connect early glimmers of progress with current initiatives.
  
  
• Explore recent progress and celebrate the groundbreaking efforts that are building a more just, inclusive society.
  
  
• Apply these lessons to create a vision for a future that embraces all people, regardless of ability.

Throughout this course, you will encounter terms, phrases and images that, while commonplace in the past, would be considered unacceptable by today's standards. These have not been altered in order to give you an accurate picture of the dehumanizing treatment that people with developmental disabilities were subjected to for thousands of years.